So join me as I explore my own long road, from Maine to Antarctica to the UK, and most things inbetween. This blog is my ramblings from the daily life of a deep-sea biologist living as an alien in the USA, and a way to keep my family and friends in the loop that is my life without filling up everyones mailbox!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Past the Horn

Lat- 57' 27S

Long- 65' 55W

Area- South of the Horn

Air Temperature - -12.8C

Sea State - Flat calm....woo hoo!

We just went past Cabos de Hornos, (or the Horn), so are now past the end of South America and are in the Drake Passage proper. The weather is great, looks like the luck from the last cruise is holding up here. Kind of bored actually, everything is set up, ready to get sampling, everyone knows what they are doing (as it's basically the same people as the Feb cruise) and we don't start working for at least another 3 days. We're starting at our most southerly site first, down at the mouth of Marguerite Bay. We looked at the ice map this morning and there is lots of ice down there that will probably slow down our progress getting there. I've never broken ice before, so thats going to be fun. I also found out i'm on the day shift this cruise, woo hoo, and double woo hoo as Stian is on a similar shift too! Stian is MPC this trip, so head honcho, but there are some not so experienced people as MTs, so so far he seems to be doing a fair bit of MT work too, i'm hoping that drops off a little so he can just enjoy being the MPC. It's more inside work and paper work, but he finds it easier and prefers it to MTing all the time. Should be a pretty chilled out cruise for him, this is such a nice group out here. Once we start work it'll get busy for me, though I have my own project on the corals going, I am on shift and help with whatever is going on as well, which is a lot of mud collecting 24/7. Last Feb it was pretty hectic, and we have less time this cruise, so i'm suspecting it'll be just as, if not more, busy.

Oh, and i don't know what the cruise website it like...........i'm a little dubious actually just from those that are writing it........but it's below if anyone wants to check it out.......